ted on all sides to
have beaten Mrs. Siddons out of the field.

William Charles Macready, 1793-1873.

The torch thus lit by Garrick, by the Kembles, by Kean and his
contemporaries was worthily kept alive by William Charles Macready, a
cultivated and conscientious actor, who, during a professional career of
more than forty years (1810-1851), assumed every great part in
Shakespearean tragedy. Although Macready lacked the classical bearing of
Kemble or the intense passion of Kean, he won as the interpreter of
Shakespeare the whole-hearted suffrages of the educated public.
Macready's chief associate in women characters was Helen Faucit
(1820-1898, afterwards Lady Martin), whose refined impersonations of
Imogen, Beatrice, Juliet, and Rosalind form an attractive chapter in the
history of the stage.

Recent revivals.

The most notable tribute paid to Shakespeare by any actor-manager of
recent times was paid by Samuel Phelps (1804-1878), who gave during his
tenure of Sadler's Wells Theatre between 1844 and 1862 competent
representations of all the plays save six; only 'Richard II,' the three
parts of 'Henry VI,' 'Troilus and Cressida,' and 'Titus Andronicus' were
omitted. Sir Henry Irving, who since 1878 has been ably seconded by Miss
Ellen Terry, has revived at the Lyceum Theatre between 1874 and the
present time eleven plays ('Hamlet,' 'Macbeth,' 'Othello,' 'Richard III,'
'The Merchant of Venice,' 'Much Ado about Nothing,' 'Twelfth Night,'
'Romeo and Juliet,' 'King Lear,' 'Henry VIII,' and 'Cymbeline'), and has
given each of them all the advantage they can derive from thoughtful
acting as well as from lavish scenic elaboration. {340a} But theatrical
revivals of plays of Shakespeare are in England intermittent, and no
theatrical manager since Phelps's retirement has sought systematically to
illustrate on the stage the full range of Shakespearean drama. Far more
in this direction has been attempted in Germany. {340b} In one respect
the history of recent Shakespearean representations can be viewed by the
literary student with unqualified satisfaction. Although some changes of
text or some rearrangement of the scenes are found imperative in all
theatrical representations of Shakespeare, a growing public sentiment in
England and elsewhere has for many years favoured as loyal an adherence
to the authorised version of the plays as is practicable on the part of
theatrical managers; and the evil traditions of the